


Lydia Martin and the never-boy

by serendipityinwords



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dead Stiles Stilinski, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Supernatural Elements, The Raven Cycle AU, noah czerny - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 16:12:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5011246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityinwords/pseuds/serendipityinwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin knew two things, for sure. First, Stiles Stilinski was a ghost. Second, she probably loved him more than she should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lydia Martin and the never-boy

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who wanted to write a stydia raven cycle AU where Stiles is a Noah? THIS GIRL who is just realizing, this is not a good idea for my emotional well-being.

You wouldn’t have known Stiles Stilinski was a ghost just by looking at him. That is, if you even  _could_  look at him. Lydia definitely didn’t and she was a certifiable genius. Just stating the facts here. Stiles was just really good at pretending he had a beating heart and blood that ran beneath his paper-thin skin. And people were generally really good at seeing what they want to see.

Stiles was pale and skinny and he slouched when he walked. He was all graceless gait and brittle bones and he was smudgy around the edges. _Breakable_ , Lydia thought when she had first noticed him.  _Soft. Fragile_. She watched him walk down the hallway, looking on as if something was bound to happen. But his head was down and he obviously found the floor infinitely more interesting than people. But altogether, not that intriguing. In fact, she might have looked away and forgotten the encounter soon after, if he hadn’t smiled right at her. Right when she didn’t think he would be looking. Like he could feel her dismissal and had wanted a fighting chance. For all his un-remarkableness, Stiles Stilinski’s smile was something strange. Grin stretching forever, bursting with secrets. Suddenly, she wanted to know all of them. She wanted to sift through them and she wanted to hold them in her hand and she didn’t think a smile should be able to do that. Because when he smiled, she felt liked she had swallowed the goddamn sun.

She wanted to see it again. And again. And again. And again. And that’s how Lydia Martin became friends with a ghost. Not that she’d known then, of course. Stiles was sarcastic and awkward. She didn’t know why it has surprised her so much. Did she really expect him to be passive? Submissive? In all the time she had known him, before they became friends, he never looked up enough for her to see how much he actually smirked. It was verging on annoying, mostly making him much more complex than she’d have given him credit for. She should’ve known better than anyone that things are never as they seem.

“You’re different than I expected,” she said one day, eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought. She could’ve sworn Stiles flickered. She almost reached out to touch him. To see if he was real but she didn’t. She tucked her hands into her pockets and stared at him until he spoke.

“You are too. Different” She guessed he was right. People didn’t expect her to be like how she was. They expected her to be cold and arrogant and most days, she was. But with Stiles, she let her guard down. She didn’t think it was out of infatuation or anything like that. It was trust. The kind that made everything seem more. She didn’t feel like that with anyone else, which was strange considering she didn’t know much about him other than his full name. Lydia never bothered asking anything else. What she knew about him was enough. The feeling was indescribable on its own, but she imagined if the feeling was a physical object, it’d be a string. She would tug it on her end and he’d tug right back.

The silence they’d lapsed into was a comfortable. One she tended to fall back on often.

“But that’s the great thing about people, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” He ducks his head slightly and starts fidgeting with his hand. She places a hand over his and is surprised at how cold his hand was. She almost pulled back but she didn’t want to. She let her hand linger and Stiles stared at their hands laced together like there was some kind of miracle at work. Not for the first time, Lydia felt like he felt something more than friendship for her. She wasn’t willing to explore that possibility just yet.

Finally, he says; “That we’re not what anyone expects.” Her answering smile is something that had a life of its own. Wild and free. When was the last time she smiled that way?

“When you’re not an asshole, you can be a real sap.” And she couldn’t seem to keep the laughter from her voice or tear her hand away, even if she was freezing. He grinned at her, sheepish and hopeful. Maybe she looked that way too. For the first time, Lydia couldn’t be bothered with appearances.

“Maybe I’m just a sappy asshole.”

“That’s not really and image I want in my head.” He laughs, a loud and pretty sound she wanted to remember for as long as she could.

“Well, get used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”

She was glad.

She liked Stiles a lot. He only seemed to be around when no one else was with her. It was a good thing too. Her friends were not exactly known for being the most welcoming of people. Truth be told, she was tired of them. They talked about things she didn’t care about, said mean things about people she didn’t know, said mean things about people she  _did_  know. The hypocrisy was exhausting. She told Stiles as much. He only laughed and said something that sounded a lot like  _finally_.

After a staggering four months of hanging with Stiles Stilinski between classes and after school and before school and the walk home, she discovered two things.

First, she was in love him.

Second, he was/had been dead.

The latter of the realizations happened fairly easily. One day, she discovered that Stiles was in, neither in any of her classes nor in the classes of anyone else she knew. She didn’t know why she’d never asked Stiles about his classes. It had simply never occurred to her. He was just this ever-present entity that was always around when she needed him. Sometimes, before she even knew she needed him. She had naturally just assumed he would be around whenever. There was never a need to look for him. She tugged the string and he tugged back.

People tended to look through him. And they never did it in a spiteful way like her old friends would have. They did it like there was just nothing to look at. _Stiles, the never-boy_. She’d brush it off because when she was with him, those things never mattered. Cold hands, she held onto for dear life. Cold hands that held right back.

And there was the fact that she had never seen him eat, which was fine, she guessed, because they generally never ate around each other. The stranger thing was, she couldn’t recall seeing him run out of breath or inhale or exhale for that matter. She breathed around him, obviously (even though sometimes, she tended to forget). How could she have not noticed? Lydia Martin was a fucking genius.

And yet, Lydia Martin couldn’t exactly blame herself for not for not noticing either. He was a necessity to her, like air or food. Neither of which  _he_ , apparently, needed. She was pretty sure he needed her, too. He made her better. Less sharp, more open, not afraid to simply be.

But eventually, she had to put everything together. Purposefully ignoring all the clues pressed against her mind and made for a constant itch Lydia couldn’t help but scratch.

So, this big unsolvable mystery boiled down to one google search. And the answer was staring right in front of her face.

Stiles Stilinski, of Beacon Hills, California, died seven years ago at the age of seventeen. Blunt trauma to the head. The murderer was never found.

She stared at the screen, finger hovering over the exit button. There was always the feeling of holding on to air, whenever she was with him. Like a damn idiot, she clutched onto something that was never meant to be, desperate for the safety and rightness she felt when she was with him. But you can’t hold air. You can only breathe it. So she breathed and she tugged.

She knew he was there before he spoke.

“I feel like I’m better looking now that I’m a ghost,” he spoke scrutinizing the picture of him used in the article Lydia forgot to exit. She sighed almost fondly. “This is the part where you agree, Lydia.”

“Stiles,” She began. She spun around and looked him in the eye, searching for some sort evidence of grief or anger. Instead, he looked thoughtful.

“Lydia.” He said her name like an answered prayer. An exhale of air he didn’t need that sent her heart reeling and she didn’t find it in her to finish whatever she was saying.

He was dead but he was here and maybe that was enough.

“I’m dead, Lydia.”

“I know.”

“I’m a fucking ghost.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” And this time, there was no soul-crushing revelation because honestly, finding out your in love with your dead, best friend should have been a bigger deal. But, there was only the reconciliation with what she had always known to what she had allowed herself to admit. She loved him. Of course, she loved him. There was no other way.

And they were silent because there was nothing else to be said.

“But, I’m  _dead_.”

“I know.”

“Lydia,” he began and she wanted to laugh for some reason. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected to see a ghost being that goddamn exasperated.

“You being dead is the  _worst,” She concluded. “_ But I think we can do this.” Stiles raised an eyebrow.

“And how exactly would we do this? One day, you’re gonna be like eighty and I’ll still be seventeen and honestly, I’m not sure if I’m ready for that level of fucked up.” And suddenly, the boy Stiles was, was clearer than ever. His exasperation, his anxiety, his awkwardness. But he was also someone else. He was fragile and strong and kind and funny and so smart. He aged too. She just didn’t know how to tell him that. She would know how to sooner or later. She’d be there. She leaned in so that their foreheads touched.

“We’d just have to figure that out when I’m eighty then.” She’d just have to lean in a little and they’re lips would have touched.

“Lydia,” He warned, voice chaotic. And then she kissed him and it was like that first time she saw him. It was nothing she could’ve ever expected because his lips were like ice and his tongue was warm and she felt like she was walking across the edge of the universe.

But the cold made her slightly dizzy and when she pulled away, her lips were slightly purple. Stiles stared at her like he was waiting for her to run away screaming. But really, how could she? She could never leave this fraying boy because he was beautiful and he was messy and he was the closest thing to good she’d ever known.

“How did you die?” His smile was sad and long and Lydia almost felt bad for asking.  _Almost_.

“This is just great post-make out conversation.”

“Stiles—“

“Someone I trusted killed me,” said Stiles, simply. Not a trace of remorse or anger. It was unsettling to her, to say the least, but she didn’t ask anything further. They had time. Technically, he had forever.

“Do you have people you miss?” This time he practically beamed as if he was just happy to be given the opportunity to remember them. Something inside Lydia ached.

“My friends and my father.” He glanced at the carpet. “God, they were— are something.” She didn’t mention the lapse in tenses. She imagined it would be difficult keeping track of the alive once you’d died.

“Tell me about them.”

So he did. They talked through most of the night. They lied next to each and she stared at the ceiling listening to the thick emotion in his voice. It was nice and painful at the same time and she didn’t think she was going to be able to get used to the constant contradictions that came with Stiles. Awkward but confident. Sad but happy. Alive but dead.

She learnt many things about Stiles Stilinski that day. Like how much he loved his father and he was to his friends. The kind of loyalty that simply didn’t exist. How could she have missed out on this? Love that was worth dying for. It sounded like a fairy tale, but from Stile’s lips, it was realer than life.

“One day, I’m going to find them.” It sounded like the first time he said it out loud. For the first time Lydia realized she might be doing something for him, the way he did for her. Maybe, just maybe, she was making him better too.

She curled up against his side and laid her head on his chest. For now, this felt good. She had a lot but there was a promise of more with him. And she knew, feeling more alive with a dead person was a different level of ironic, but she couldn’t give a fuck. This was a real thing and for all the fake things she’d had in her life, this was really good.

It felt really good.

“We’ll work it out,” He promised as he bent down to kiss her again. And for all her experience, Lydia had to admit, he kissed pretty well for a dead guy.

“We’ll work it out.”


End file.
